Weekend in Review

Over the weekend, we welcomed a couple of days of rain, which meant that (other than sneaking in a little yard work Saturday morning) I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. 

But first, I picked these garden treasures. The broccoli is still putting off tender shoots, much to my delight. I finally harvested all the cabbages, which had been picked over pretty badly by cabbage-eating bugs. The winter garden is taking a cue and winding down, just in time for spring. 

We stopped by one of our local nurseries and picked up a few six-packs... of strawberries. They found a happy home in one of our small 4-by-4 beds; planting instructions be damned! They are in rows on the diagonal, which is so very appealing to the part of my brain that wants to be a designer.

After much reassuring that pursuing a fermented recipe would not make our house stink, I set about making a simple recipe for kimchi. I sort of combined elements of this recipe and a couple of tips from this one for an easy version, which to me seems like an easy refrigerator pickle. Not wanting to dirty up the processor, I mashed garlic, ginger, and red chiles together with a mortar and pestle.

I used our garden cabbage, local carrots and green onions from Johnson's Backyard Garden, and a few other organic ingredients. If it turns out tasty, I'll post the recipe. If not, we'll just call this a happy little weekend experiment. 

After an afternoon nap and a cup of tea, I found myself gathering ingredients for these unbelievably decadent salted caramel brownies from Smitten Kitchen. Shockingly, the recipe (which calls for you to make your own caramel candies and then make brownies from scratch) was very simple and I used only two dishes. It could not have been a more straightforward recipe. Which is all the more reason to go forth and make them.

And when they came out of the oven, well... These were, without a doubt, the most delicious thing I have ever baked in my life. Perfect. Fudgy and toothsome, with an impressive caramel flavor, a hint of salt, the bitterness of dark chocolate, and a rounded sweetness — these brownies are too good for ice cream but perfect with coffee.

Wordless Wednesday: The Garden Lives

After last week's sad tale of the squash vine borer attack, here's how the garden looks today. It's alive, and we're harvesting Plenty. Of. Food.

Have I shown you the watermelon patch yet? It's overgrown its boundaries, by a long shot, and there are some sweet little gems in there.

This smallish moon & stars watermelon will grow to about 20 pounds.

Eggplant starts are now growing where the zucchini once lived. One zuke remains, in the background.

All harvested this week: butternut squash, green tomatoes, and a trio of peppers.

Peppers, tomatillos, and heirloom green beans are going strong.

A bee happily at work inside a pumpkin bloom.

An heirloom variety of muskmelon (cantaloupe) nears full size.

Huge sunflowers threaten to bloom in the watermelon patch.

Wordless Wednesday: Pretty Beans and Godzilla Zucchini

Jalapenos ready for pickling.

Heirloom pole beans in stunning purples and greens!

Strawberry-basil margarita recipe test #1: needed more tequila.

A typical garden harvest, twice a week.

The Godzilla Zucchini, which I missed on the vine: 2 pounds, 6 3/8 ounces = 11 cups grated.

Tomatillos that look like tiny paper lanterns. They're so beautiful!

Wordless Wednesday: Pole Beans and Green Tomatoes

Sunset in the garden of good. No evil at the moment.

Pole bean blossoms backlit by sunset.

Green tomatoes!

Green tomatoes (they weren't ripening on the vine, so this is an experiment).

One of my favorite parts of the garden.

Wordless Wednesday: Garden Progress

Butternut squash dance along the vines.

A cascade of fresh zucchini slices. 

The pole beans reach for the sky.

Someone took a bite out of our first red tomato. Here's a hint: it wasn't me.

The garden in the evening sun; some of my favorite light!

Cucumbers on the vine; this is the Diva variety. The fruit is sweet and seedless.

Is there anything more lovely than a tomato plant covered in blooms? Hmm?

The first of the cucumber crop—pickles, anyone? 

The garden haul from this weekend. See the lonely cherry tomato?

Wordless Wednesday: The Morning Routine

Here's what our morning routine looks like most days of the week. Fin and I are up first, and after the two of us go outside to check on the gardens and play, we settle in for a homemade breakfast.

Many folks skip this part of the morning all together, but in our home, we believe in it wholeheartedly.

It's simple, reliable, healthy, warm, and delicious. And even if I'm feeling rushed, I'm better off because we share breakfast together as a family. This meal is nourishing and enjoyable; but best of all, it gives us a moment in the mornings to sit at our table and quietly, ritually, enjoy.

Strawberries from a place decidedly not our garden.

Everything finishes at the same time.

Stovetop espresso and boiling water for americanos. We brew Lola Savannah's Caramella coffee, which I buy in half-pound increments each week at Central Market. It is by far the best coffee we've ever had at home.

Cooked oatmeal in an enameled blue cast iron pot. It gets a lot of love.

Oatmeal topped with flax seed, cinnamon, and brown sugar... In the early morning light.

Wordless Wednesday: First Fruits

Cucumber vines putting out blooms and crawling up the trellises.

Zucchini plants blooming all down the row. 

The first banana pepper!

An heirloom pole bean snakes up its trellis.

A pattypan squash hangs like an ornament on the vine.

Pole beans and edamame look happy together.

First fruits: two zucchini and one pattypan squash harvested today!

Hempseed veggie burger with Texas goat cheese from Hopdoddy. 

Early Summer Garden Tour

Here's the garden plan which has helped me tremendously. No more impulse buys or super-crowded beds. Well, almost.

I hope this is as much a treat for you as it is for me! (GARDENERD ALERT.) I was so excited to get home to the garden last night and take photos, because I knew it was finally time to show everyone how the plants are doing.

They're alive. Which is fan-TAS-tic. And many of them are blooming!

You may notice a few strange things, like white dust everywhere and random logs in the garden beds. These are attempts at keeping pests at bay. The white dust is both DT (diatomaceous earth) and BT (bacillus thuringiensis), which are organic gardening bug deterrents and seem to be working for now, knock on wood! The logs are an effort to keep the cats at bay—they've been especially pesky in that one bed, since I don't have enough pine straw down to deter them. They love to dig in the beds at night. It aggravates me to no end. These are not our cats, mind you, they're cats that live near us. I've also sprinkled ground cinnamon in all the beds to further deter the kitties. Mildly effective as far as I can tell. It seems the best way to keep them out is to crowd them out.

While I tried to plant all of this from seed, many of my attempts didn't work. So from seed, we have cantaloupe, watermelon, pole beans, edamame (impulse buy, when I found out it was too hot for snap peas!), butternut squash, and yellow straightneck squash. The cucumbers, tomatillos, tomatoes, zucchini, scallop squash, and all the peppers are transplants.

Without further ado... the early summer garden!

Wordless Wednesday: Zukes, Tomatillo Blooms...It Is Spring!

 

 

*Blogger users: this sad-looking photo format is what happens when you blog via the Blogger app. My apologies—won't happen again!